Small Collections Grant
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Improving the conservation of UFRN herbarium specimens
Brasil
Conserve
Cost (USD):
2000
UFRN
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
Objective:
The objective of our project is to buy two dehumidifiers to be used to keep humidity low in our collection, plus one herbarium cabinet to store type specimens.The UFRN herbarium collection, in Natal, is a small public herbarium, the largest in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Northeastern Brazil. Currently we store 26,210 specimens, 58 type specimens). The herbarium is maintained by public funds, but since 2015, despite all the personnel engagement to improve the herbarium conditions, the collection is suffering, particularly with limitations of public funding in Brazil to acquire equipment.
Timetable:
Once we receive the amount from IAPT the 3 equipment will be immediately buy and the time of 20 days is asked to receive the items. After that we immediately place them in our rooms (one in the basal angiosperms and monocots room, one in the eudicots room and the cabinet for the type specimens will be filled only with the type specimens, which right now share with the general collection the same space).
Our collection is the largest and most representative of the Flora of Rio Grande do Norte State. We are completely digitalized (http://ufrn.jbrj.gov.br/v2/estatisticapublica.php), and we have also helped other collections, with their digitalization. Also, we incorporated a small collection of the herbarium of Museu Câmara Cascudo and restored the specimens.
Scoring Rubric
Reviewer's name:
Collection Improvement (max. 120 points)
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Facilitating access to the physical collections by digitization (e.g., data entry, setting up database structure with an outline of the platform to be used, purchasing equipment, and imaging specimens) – up to 30 points.
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Enhancing physical collections by improving the conservation status of specimens in the herbarium (e.g., better folders, protecting covers, mounting paper, labeling, etc.) – up to 30 points.
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Curating specimens (e.g., updating families, species identification, identifying types) – up to 20 points.
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Increasing our understanding of the flora or funga by making new herbarium specimens available, such as processing of backlog or collecting and mounting of new specimens from understudied sites – up to 20 points.
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Securing collections by distribution of duplicates (or orphan collections) to other regional or international herbaria or shipping endangered collections to another herbarium – up to 20 points.
This proposal scores:
/120
Methods & Funding (max. 40 points)
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Match between the proposed budget and methods for the aims described – up to 10 points.
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Perceived need, the extent to which the project will benefit from IAPT funding: e.g., due to active floristic work or contribution to poorly collected sites, due to threatened conditions of collections, and for the degree of involvement of others (outreach and education). We give more points for herbaria in low- and middle-income countries – up to 20 points.
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Sharing duplicate specimens with other herbaria – up to 10 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Broader Impacts (max. 40 points)
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Degree of regional importance of the collection or the taxonomic importance of the targeted collection – up to 10 points.
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The project will yield durable benefits (specimens, digitized metadata, databases, websites) – up to 15 points.
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The project involves outreach/mentoring and broad dissemination – up to 15 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Year of last successful SCG application:
Has applicant applied for SCG before?:
Plan:
We will buy immediately the three equipments and put them in our herbarium. Our collections are well kept and the base for our graduate and undergraduate students to conduct their research, which is an active group of three taxonomists working and researching mainly in the Bromeliaceae, Cactaceae, Burseraceae and floristics and flora of Rio Grande do Norte. We are the reference collection for the Flora of Rio Grande do Norte (e.g. Colombo et al. 2016) and our collection has benefited from research collaborative partners (revised in Versieux et al. 2017). Our efforts to have a digital database as well as to be fully photographed and digitized are recognized in some official publications of the Brazil Flora Group and also in Gasper et al. (2021).
As Natal has a tropical climate, our main problems are to control humidity within the herbarium rooms. Currently we are operating with only one dehumidifier, when the necessary number for our rooms would be three.
Since 2018, the staff has been doing all the possible things to raise funds. We sell t-shirts, mugs, caps, all to be reverted to small amounts of money to pay for fixing some equipment or to buy consumable material not frequently available in the public systems of purchasing. Nevertheless, these 3 dehumidifiers are beyond our capacities and receiving such grant will be extremely helpful.
Our collection is the largest and most representative of the Flora of Rio Grande do Norte State.
Institution:
IH Code:
Country:
Target areas:
Applicant First Name/s:
email:
"Other" target:
LEONARDO DE MELO VERSIEUX
Applicant Last Name/s: